Many drugs and medications currently prescribed by physicians require periodic administration. That is, the medication must be taken at prescribed time intervals. If the patient ignores such instructions and repeats his dosage too frequently, he runs the risk of an overdose. Similarly, if the patient should forget to administer the medication at the proper time intervals, the concentration of medication in his body may become too low. Therefore, certain time-keeping responsibilities are clearly imposed when taking a medication. This time-keeping responsibility falls of necessity upon either the patient or those who care for him. With regard to the latter, the responsibilities are aggravated if more than one person is caring for the patient, such as in a family or institutional setting. The multiple attendants must properly communicate with one another or confusion may result as to when the medication was last administered. This again may lead to under or over dosage.
Perhaps the most common method of meeting this responsibility is to note the current time on a watch or other standard time-keeping device, and to calculate the time at which the next medication must be taken. The patient or attendant then administers the medication and commits the calculated time to memory. When that later time arrives, the patient or attendant then re-administers the medication and the process is repeated.
Although a number of disadvantages are obvious in this prior art method, the most critical disadvantage is placing reliance upon the memory of either the patient or the caretaker. Further errors may be introduced if the calculation of the future time is incorrect. These problems become particularly acute with patients whose mental or physical condition make them less capable of reliably discharging such actions, or, as mentioned above, where a number of persons are responsible for the patient.
The prior art sought to alleviate these problems by following two separate paths of thought. The first path involves the development of medications that do not rely upon either the patient or his attendants for proper periodic administration. For instance, there are various drug release wafers characterized by membranes implantable within the patient's body that periodically release the required dosage. To date, both the development of such medications and the resultant product have been quite expensive. Also, some degree of inconvenience is necessitated by the requirement of subsequent implants. Furthermore, this technology is unsuitable for situations where the patient must be on medications for undeterminable periods.
The second path taken by the prior art has involved the use of devices designed to either minimize the mental calculations involved and/or to operate as reminder devices. Typical of such devices is the pocket chronometer and pill container disclosed in United States Pat No. 2,853,182. This patent shows a small pill case having a timer and alarm built into it, such that when the alarm sounds, the patient will be alerted and act accordingly. Other reminder type devices include containers having an integral recordation system for passively denoting the most recent administration of the medication.
A number of problems are either left unresolved by the prior art, or newly created thereby. Some or all of the prior art devices and methods suffer the following deficiencies:
(1) No notice is given of missed medications; PA1 (2) The devices are relatively complicated to operate and may confuse the limited faculties of an ill person; PA1 (3) The more reliable and comprehensive devices tend to be relatively expensive; PA1 (4) There must be a conscious effort upon the part of the patient or caretaker to painstakingly recalculate and reset the reminder portion of the device, and more frequently than not, this conscious effort must be separate from the act of dispensation; PA1 (5) Many of the devices are ill-suited for medications requiring more than 24 hours between dosages; PA1 (6) Many of the devices do not account for the realities of proper medicinal administration; i.e., that the new time interval should begin only when the medication is taken, even if the most recent medication were taken late; and PA1 (7) Many of the devices are not compatible with currently available pill containers, providing instead their own integral compartments which may give rise to problems of pill contamination, mixing and accumulative toxidity;